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While lighting has been a primary focus in utility portfolios for years, it has had a diminished emphasis as savings opportunities from solid state lighting technology have been largely realized by programs, standards, and codes. However, modern lighting control systems have become granular, affordable, and data-rich sources of information about building conditions. There remains the potential to integrate with other building systems creating an opportunity for energy savings and demand flexibility in other building systems.
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
This technology family includes sensors, communication systems, control algorithms, advanced diagnostics and analytics, and integration capabilities that reduce energy consumption in lighting. It can encompass other building systems and appliances, enhance occupant comfort and wellness, or provide data to feed into systems in other technology families, including Envelopes, Integrated Systems, Scalable HVAC Controls, and Plug Load Optimization and Management.
Note: See the Whole Buildings TPM for details of the Envelope and Integrated Systems technology families, the HVAC TPM for the Scalable HVAC Controls technology family, and the Plug Loads and Appliances TPM for the Plug Load Optimization and Management technology family.
Examples for commercial and industrial applications: advanced monitoring, diagnostics, analytics, and integration capabilities in lighting control systems and lighting energy management systems (EMS); use of integrated sensor information to enhance building EMS performance and for other energy and non-energy uses; daylighting controls that coordinate with fenestration design and other building systems.
Example for residential applications: home automation.
In commercial and industrial applications, lighting controls and inter-system integration can reduce energy consumption of both lighting and other end uses all while incorporating increasingly important demand flexibility. Energy benefits from controls may be increased by simplifying on-site commissioning and enabling control features with more aggressive settings by default. Interconnection with HVAC controls can enable reduction of both HVAC and lighting energy consumption during unoccupied and partially occupied periods. Greater sensitivity and more sensor nodes can enhance sophisticated controls programming and reduce uncertainty in the commissioning process, saving time and lowering energy consumption.
Advanced daylighting technologies using combinations of passive apparatus and active tracking and control can bring natural light into spaces within buildings that are traditionally unreachable through architectural fenestration design. Introducing daylight in buildings can result in both health benefits for building occupants and energy savings, being careful to consider both lighting and HVAC energy.
Lighting system native metering and reporting features may be used to quantify actual energy savings as opposed to the current, expensive practice of third-party verification. It may enable more streamlined measurement and verification, accurate energy usage trending, improved continuous commissioning strategies, efficient facility management workflow, and advanced integration use cases. The native metering capability with dashboard visibility and real-time communication with other building systems or the grid may also help energy managers develop more sophisticated load management strategies.
Integration should be a research emphasis for commercial and industrial applications to incorporate lighting into part of the whole building load as a standard practice. This would allow the inclusion of lighting as one of a building’s dispatchable and controllable load when the building responds to both utility and intra-building load management needs, achieving higher demand flexibility at the whole-building level.
Lighting controls in residential applications currently provide mostly amenities, allowing light level or color to change based on voice commands or triggers from other smart home devices. Smart lamps and light fixtures are increasingly moving away from requiring a proprietary hub, so adding a focus on energy, such as energy-focused “skills” or “recipes” in the smart home apps or smart home hub could promote higher energy savings. There are also opportunities to address this through the Whole Buildings technology category, where lighting controls are incorporated as an element of home automation to achieve a deeper level of whole-home integration.
In commercial and industrial applications, lighting control strategies are well-understood at a high level, but they still carry a stigma from the past of not working when they were implemented in legacy systems and light sources. Controls would be disabled, and owners and contractors would only install the bare minimum to avoid getting complaints from occupants. The system complexity, especially when accessing advanced features like native metering, diagnostics, analytics, and integration, as well as continually evolving options of system architecture poses a challenge for field implementation. Modern systems are more software- than hardware-based; contractors may not be fully trained, and most will not know the proper programming and start-up process for advanced system features and capabilities. Even with the most sophisticated lighting systems, they are often only configured for code compliance, leaving the advanced capabilities underutilized and deeper savings untapped due to contractor or owner unfamiliarity. Systems integrated with other building end-uses have increased complexity, adding cost and coordination barriers to projects. Research focusing on simplifying and standardizing the access, setup, and utilization of advanced lighting system capabilities would help break down the barriers of lighting control systems not being used to their full potential to achieve the highest energy savings and demand flexibility.
The customers’ lack of education for requesting advanced controls and capabilities creates a barrier to adoption from the inception of the project. As modern lighting control systems move towards being software-centric in the face of an aging workforce, contractor education is essential to address complexity barriers and avoid poor occupant satisfaction. Specifier and architect education can avoid poorly executed controls integration, often stemming from unclear intent, vague specification, and inefficient communication among the multidisciplinary actors involved. Knowledge sharing from successful projects can address resistance to complex controls from facility managers.
Accessing the advanced capabilities continues to command a high premium, reserving these capabilities for only the most well-budgeted large projects. The lack of a clear line between code requirements for controls and incentive program eligibility also creates a barrier to the adoption of advanced controls.
In residential applications, the adoption of lighting connectivity and controls is particularly low among HUD-assisted renter households due to affordability constraints, a substantial barrier to adoption. Addressing this sector, as well as the rest of the residential sector, solely from the energy efficiency angle is not sufficient due to cost-effectiveness considerations of the energy efficiency measures. Innovative intervention strategies, possibly leveraging non-utility programs, initiatives, or campaigns that focus on other non-energy benefits, will need to be explored.
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
Horticultural Lighting systems produce light and non-visible electromagnetic radiation for plant growth and horticultural production in indoor commercial production facilities or for supplemental lighting in commercial production greenhouses, including specific design strategies, lighting technologies and control systems for optimizing productivity, energy efficiency, and resource conservation. This technology family includes high-efficiency fixtures, lamps, and controls for in-home growing.
Note: Non-lighting technologies intended for horticulture such as dehumidification (HVAC/D), envelopes, or irrigation controls are handled under the Indoor Agriculture technology family in the Process Loads TPM.
Examples for commercial applications: high-efficiency horticultural luminaires for grow facilities; lighting controls and system design for horticultural grow facilities in a wide variety of building types.
Examples for residential applications: high-efficiency fixtures and lamps for in-home, personal horticultural growing.
The most significant, proven opportunities for this technology family are for energy savings, and other standards and programs are already in place. Demand flexibility benefits can be added via scheduling-based system designs and powering the lighting system from renewable energy or embedded electrical energy storage. Increased demand reduction and demand flexibility from this technology family would have a significant impact on relieving the grid stress at the distribution level.
Key drivers of energy savings include increasing the efficacy and productivity of horticulture through optimization of system designs, controls, light source innovations, and reducing negative impacts from light pollution. The California Building Energy Standards, Title 24, Part 6, requires a minimum photosynthetic photo efficacy (PPE) of 1.9 and 1.7 micromoles per joule (μmol/J) for luminaires and lamps used in indoor grow facilities and greenhouses, respectively. The code change proposal for 2025 Title 24, Part 6 is looking to increase the minimum PPE requirements to 2.3 and 1.9 μmol/J for the two applications. While code requirements and efficiency standards are catching up on light source efficacy, the focus of horticultural lighting as an emerging technology should be on system design and controls to unlock largely untapped savings. Innovations in sensor and control strategies can maximize energy performance and demand flexibility by leveraging spectral tunability and harvesting daylight. Efficient and productive indoor growing enabled by horticultural lighting could also have both direct and indirect greenhouse gas reduction advantages over the open-field growing practices. Another non-energy benefit includes the potential of reducing light pollution when lighting is deployed with thermal blocking curtains in greenhouses.
Recreational indoor plant growing in the residential sector is still a niche market compared to commercial production. There are energy savings opportunities as the energy performance and effectiveness of these light sources are not well-characterized, and their efficiency is not currently governed by building codes, appliance standards, or voluntary certification programs.
Rapid expansion of indoor agriculture has resulted in inefficient system designs, a lack of targeted efficiency programs, and the need for systems with higher efficacy and greater power quality.
Technical barriers are largely related to system design. There is a lack of clarity for designers and trusted tools for optimizing productivity and efficacy of horticultural lighting systems as well as limited understanding of the interactive impacts of schedule, space conditioning, HVAC/D, and water level. Lighting control strategies, including automatic spectral tuning and daylight harvesting, are still new concepts to most growers, and their performance is not well-quantified. As such, controls are yet to be as widely built into horticultural lighting systems as their counterparts in architectural lighting. Spectral tuning, while not likely to generate additional energy savings, could serve as a catalyst to breaking down growers’ hesitancy in adopting efficient light sources and controls by offering promising potential for higher crop yield. Market barriers include the lack of confidence due to uncertain cost-effectiveness, limited in-field evaluation of innovative lighting technologies and controls, and lack of best-practice lighting designs from experienced practitioners, considering both performance and cost. For the residential or small seasonal commercial customer, the cost of certified efficient products such as those listed by the DesignLights Consortium (DLC) may be more expensive than energy savings can justify. Requirements for certifying products typically require a minimum of a five-year warranty on products, rendering many three-year-warranty products that meet the same technical qualifications at a lower cost ineligible for consideration and program support.
Efficiency programs have yet to identify high-priority program opportunities for targeted horticulture applications and sectors with reliable, low-carbon intensity, cost-effective solutions. Code requirements related to horticultural lighting and systems in different applications and building types also lack consistency.
Research should focus on activities that help build knowledge for the industries (both growers and utilities), including:
Outputs from research would help alleviate growers’ hesitancy in trying different technologies or growing practices for fear of lower yields and income. Additionally, research findings from the indoor agriculture technology family under the Process Loads technology category should be incorporated to highlight considerations, such as the need for additional heating or watering rates, that would need to be part of a facility upgrade plan.
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
This technology family encompasses products, design strategies and components that improve the efficiency of exterior lighting in commercial and public sectors while also considering best practices for the nighttime lighting environment (human health, visual comfort, public safety, and environmental impacts).
DERs-integrated exterior luminaires (grid-powered); networked controls; exterior-specific occupancy sensing technologies; emerging design practices; high-efficiency light sources or optics.
There are significant energy savings and demand flexibility benefits if the entire exterior lighting stock is transformed by this technology family. Streetlights managed by the public sector stakeholders and area lighting managed by commercial sector stakeholders are the primary focus. With the peak demand on the California grid moving toward the early evening hours, this technology family could shift a significant portion of exterior lighting demand while also delivering meaningful energy savings. As utility tariffs continue to evolve, advanced network controls and DERs integration for exterior lighting will become more cost-effective and increased adoption should drive additional innovation. DERs-integrated exterior lighting also has the potential to serve as part of the essential infrastructure in locations with a high likelihood of power outage, such as areas impacted by the Public Safety Power Shutoff events.
Additional opportunity lies in developing occupancy-sensing technologies that enable deep savings for installations where the dimensions or other site-specific conditions, such as vegetation or weather, prohibit the deployment of existing occupancy sensing technologies. Projects focused on refining the definition of idealized visual environments through human factors studies can further reduce energy usage. Advanced exterior lighting, particularly roadway or parking lot lighting, also has the potential to incorporate electric vehicle (EV) chargers into the existing infrastructure for non-energy benefits (equity and low-income sector).
Research should focus on the following areas:
Exterior lighting consists of a wide array of applications (roadway, hardscape/area, façade, landscaping, and more), each of which may have more than one accepted design practice that depends on site-specific conditions. Because of this, the performance of advanced exterior lighting technology is understood for some of the example technologies for a range of limited applications but never broadly across the entire breadth of possible deployments. The diversity and scale of exterior lighting applications is a significant barrier to justifying programs for technologies covered under this family. Workforce training related to installation and commissioning and adoption/acceptance by operations and maintenance staff remains a significant barrier to the adoption and deployment of advanced approaches to exterior lighting. Also, the conventional design practice of maintaining nighttime visibility for public safety significantly limits the wide adoption of occupant-based control technology.
CalNEXT is interested in collaborating and co-funding projects.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having moderate overall impacts within the Technology Category.
Any lighting appliance for commercial and industrial applications that operates on a DC power distribution network fits the DC Lighting technology family.
Note: Depending on the project scope, prospective projects in the DC Lighting technology family may also have relevance to the Electrical Infrastructure technology families (Whole Building TPM).
Power-over-ethernet (PoE) lighting systems; low-voltage direct current (DC) lighting (<60VDC); higher-voltage DC lighting; off-grid lighting.
DC lighting has the potential for improved electrical efficiency, primarily through the consolidation of AC/DC conversion, with proper design and deployment. DC lighting may also support easier battery-energy storage system integration, and as a result, greater load flexibility. The potential impact on energy savings, demand flexibility, and operational efficiency is especially promising when integrated with distributed energy resources (DERs) as a part of the pure DC infrastructure within a building.
PoE and other DC lighting systems with data communication functionality can support a highly integrated and adaptive lighting system.
Low-voltage DC lighting systems may benefit from different construction requirements that will lower installation costs in new construction compared to line-voltage systems.
Off-grid lighting can result in energy savings when replacing mains-powered alternatives and avoid distribution infrastructure costs in new construction.
Technical barriers to DC lighting adoption include the lack of interoperability between manufacturers, lack of standard design practices addressing specific DC requirements (e.g., system architecture, switch power supply sizing), and unproven and unquantified system-level efficiency improvements over traditional alternating current (AC) lighting systems. Existing DC lighting systems still largely rely on upstream AC-to-DC conversion. The benefits — both energy and non-energy — of a pure DC lighting system are not well-characterized as use of a DC infrastructure is almost nonexistent in buildings.
Market actors lack an understanding of the use cases and the associated value propositions of DC lighting. Contractors lack the familiarity to confidently and correctly install them or the labor force needed to realize installation cost savings for low voltage. Confusion regarding appliance repair responsibility within the facility management, cyber-security concerns, and atypical user interfaces are also major market barriers.
DC lighting currently has no significant incremental energy savings or other energy benefits in retrofitting AC lighting for efficiency programs to leverage for accelerated and large-scale deployment.
Market studies focusing on understanding the current landscape of DC lighting technologies, clarifying the value propositions for different DC lighting technologies, and examining how DC lighting integrates with other building systems are critical research needs to help overcome market barriers. Demonstrations of DC lighting on a pure building DC infrastructure, including direct integration with DERs, will help clarify the technology performance and benefits of the technology family.
CalNEXT is interested in collaborating and co-funding projects.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having moderate overall impacts within the Technology Category.
Advanced Electric Light Sources have two primary functions: energy-focused and non-energy-focused. For energy-focused functions, advanced electric light sources provide high-efficiency illumination and offer additional functionality such as network communication, sensors, or built-in intelligence for enhancing the effectiveness of light delivery. Advanced electric light sources also provide disinfection and/or light benefiting human health.
Examples for commercial and industrial applications: Network-connected linear lamps, retrofit kits, and luminaires; tubular lighting emitting diodes (TLEDs), retrofit kits, and luminaires with embedded sensors and controls; spectrally tunable light sources and spectrally engineered LED for peak melanopic sensitivity in offices, schools, and healthcare settings; disinfecting luminaires in offices, schools, healthcare, and public settings; laser diodes for industrial high bay applications.
Examples for residential applications: network-connected lamps and downlights; lamps and fixtures with embedded sensors and controls; spectrally tunable or engineered LED for sleep/wake cycle improvement.
Advanced Electric Light Sources have the potential to continue to drive energy savings beyond LED conversions through built-in sensors and controls. Light sources with built-in sensors, connectivity, and intelligence have the potential to enable demand flexibility for lighting systems as well as other building systems and appliances.
The current architectural and lighting research trends show that there is potential for improving occupant health and well-being (circadian rhythm or disinfection) by using Advanced Electrical Light Sources. Units designed for impacting circadian rhythm are beneficial in the office, education, and healthcare settings as well as residential buildings. Advanced Electrical Light Sources with disinfection functionality are most impactful in office, healthcare, and public assembly buildings.
Higher costs and unproven energy and non-energy benefits are generally the key market barriers of this technology family. Cost and simplicity are particularly important factors for increasing the penetration of retrofit light sources with onboard sensing and connectivity capabilities that can reduce energy consumption from illumination.
For Advanced Electric Light Sources that can deliver non-energy benefits, the technical performance is not well-quantified as the supporting science may not be fully developed. Non-visual lighting simulation tools and metrics have been developed, but validation research is still required.
CalNEXT is interested in collaborating and co-funding projects.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having low relative impacts within the Technology Category.
This technology family covers illumination for the display of visual information in interior or exterior environments.
LED billboards, channel letter signs, back-lit graphics; light control films (LCF); liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and other display signage; LED replacements for neon signs; signage controls.
Progress in illumination technologies offers the opportunity for more energy-efficient, durable, and long-lasting signage lighting. Higher energy savings and demand flexibility can be achieved through signage controls. Newer technologies offer better lighting quality and the potential to reduce light pollution compared to incumbent technologies. The new program measure opportunities may exist to incentivize lower energy consumption through controls, advanced light source technology, and product design details to ensure lower energy consumption.
California code requirements for indoor and outdoor signage are based on older technologies such as metal halide and fluorescents light sources. Recent code update proposals have faltered as industry adoption of LED signage is above code baselines, casting doubt on the benefits of stricter code.
The basis for programs will need to be detailed knowledge of industry standard practice (ISP) for the energy consumption and controls strategies in modern signage products and signage retrofit approaches.
ENERGY STAR® currently has a Signage Display category, but it only covers displays that are similar to modern LED-style televisions. Large LED billboards, channel letter signs, static cabinet signs, and other common sign types do not have any guidance or performance targets to establish ISP or better levels. No recent utility program is specifically targeted at signage lighting and controls.
Please refer to the Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council for a complete list of active and completed projects to ensure your project is not duplicative.